I heard some people say only white people will bend baseball cap trims when they wear it, while black people won’t do this. Is this even true? Where is this rumor/stereotype from?

30 comments

  1. I think the stereotype was more true in the past than it is today. Now the popular thing is just to wear it flat. I can’t get used to that. I grew up when curving it was the thing to do, and I still wear it like that.

    Edit – I would be willing to guess that the stereotype came from hip hop culture/fashion. I am in my 30’s and remember seeing it in music videos before I knew anyone in person doing it. Like a lot of fashion, the younger crowd picks it up, and it becomes a thing of that generation.

  2. This is not true. In fact, it used to be in reverse.

    I have flat bills and round bills. I wear each depending on my mood or aesthetic of the day.

    Round bills are more functional. Flat bills are often more fashionable.

  3. Round and in front to help shade your eyes is functional. Everything else is fashion.

  4. I wouldn’t say that’s accurate.

    Historically you’d wear the cap for a while and it would naturally bend. At least by the 80s or 90s, people would bend the caps when they got them, to make them feel more comfortable like those well-worn caps. Then sometime maybe around 2010, it was the opposite: trendy people not only didn’t bend them, they’d leave stickers and tags on them to make it clear how new and undamaged they were.

    Now perhaps the trend is changing again.

    The “not bending” trend was mostly a young and urban thing, but I wouldn’t say it correlates much with race. And just in general, fashion trends may originate in black and urban communities, but trends seldom stay in one place.

  5. The rounded bill is meant to be functional.

    The flat bill I think comes from when caps were brand new they would be flat from the factory and so people would intentionally preserve it to show off how “fresh” and new it is. I’m too dorky and white to know if that purely came from black culture or not, but its carried over as just as a normal bit of fashion.

    You do whatever you think looks good though.

  7. That’s not necessarily true. It’s more an urban/rural fashion divide. You’ll usually see good ole boys (black, white, etc) with a folded bill. You’ll see flat brim hat more associated with street wear, which is more urban fashion.

  8. It’s a difference in styles of hat and stereotypes about who wears what style.

    Think of a [“dad hat”](https://www.mlbshop.com/san-francisco-giants/mens-san-francisco-giants-47-black-legend-mvp-adjustable-hat/t-36905527+p-1486081333425+z-9-2699512395?_ref=p-DLP:m-GRID:i-r10c1:po-31) vs a [“snapback”](https://www.mlbshop.com/san-francisco-giants/mens-san-francisco-giants-new-era-black-primary-logo-9fifty-snapback-hat/t-25120050+p-2652692233581+z-9-1847064473?_ref=p-SRP:m-GRID:i-r0c0:po-0).

    In reality it’s less of a “white vs black” thing and more of a thing about what your style/subculture is and those get conflated. I know people from both groups who wear styles of hats that break this idea.

  9. This was sort of true in like… 2004? The style back then was to wear a “fresh” hat that look like it came right off the shelf. Even then, that was for fitted baseball caps and not the average “dad hat”.

  10. Originally certain fashion choices regarding hats originated in subcultures that may be primarily from white or black communities but over time got absorbed into the mainstream. You’ll see people of all types wear curved or straight bill caps. These trends also can vary by decade.

    For me it depends the type of hat. If I’m wearing a [dad hat](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0817/3919/products/BCPTN-RGW14GWSNL-NY87-HR-F_62054fbc-6f5b-4d7b-9553-c44b7f733aa6.jpg?v=1627021720), those tend to look better curved. Some styles of fitted (like a stretch fit) will also look better curved if the hat is more floppy.

    If I’m wearing a more rigid [fitted hat](https://dks.scene7.com/is/image/GolfGalaxy/17NEWMMLBTWNSNVYLAPA?qlt=70&wid=600&fmt=webp) like a team official on-field hat or a more rigid snapback I’ll keep the bill straight or just slightly curved as I think it looks better on me.

  12. In addition to flat brims leaving the price tag and factory sticker(s) attached was also a trend at one point. Late 90s, early 2000s if I recall.

  13. How round the bill needs to be changes over time. Classically, the bill had a slight roundness. In the 90s, this increased, and you’d often see young people (mostly white men, but everyone really) actively bend their caps’ visors to a more rounded shape. At the extreme the visor became a horseshoe on the wearer’s forehead (and looked terrible).

    Nowadays that’s shifted back to the classic slight curve, with perhaps the beginnings of the curve bending again.

    A truly flat visor is rare, and often associated with rural work.

  14. That’s not true. I thought I remembered Chuck D wearing a flat brim, but when I googled it they were all arched. 50 Cent kept it fairly flat but not completely. BTW Max Verstappen looked especially dumb when he kept it flat. I’m glad to see he’s been bending it lately. Maybe it’s a sign he’s finally relaxing.

  16. Sort of.

    In the mid to late 2000’s flat brimmed hats were popular with rappers and thus popular with their fans. It’s was the style basically rest it on your head and the leave the 59Fifty sticker on it.

    These hats were exceptionally stupid looking I’m my opinion, because the bill was actually wider than the hat.

    I’d say it was predominantly black dudes wearing these, but not *only* them.

    After a while, into the early 2010s, they became more toned down and popular among a larger portion of people. Then you saw rural white girls wearing flat brimmed Von Dutch or John Deere (edit: Tapout lol) hats or whatever.

    Nowadays I’d say it rare to see a flat brimmed hat like those, they seem to be coming back to a slight curve, which means in like 5 years it’ll be back to the 1999 style of having an extreme curve lol

  17. When I was in highschool it was “fashionable” to bend the brim. Now it seems it isn’t. Honestly, wear it however you want. I think flat billed ball caps look ridiculous on me. I also think they look good on my sons though.

  18. Depends more on clothing style and subculture than race these days. There’s not as much strict division among ethnic groups for subcultures than there was in the 1990s and earlier.

  19. Bent cap is how they used to make all baseball hats. Flat brims are new. It’s a generational thing, not a race thing.

  21. Wear your hat any way you want! It’s like asking whether you can wear a necklace…it’s a style preference

  23. Our forefathers didn’t fight for independence for me to have my type of baseball hat brim dictated to me! Bald eagles attack!!

  27. Flat brim may have come from black fashion. But, like many other things like music and slang and food, it got shuffled into larger cultural relevancy. This does not mean there aren’t black people who wear caps with bent brims though. There’s no expectation.

  28. I feel like back in the day most baseball caps came the brim flat so you had to curve it yourself. Now it seems they come with the brims already curved.

  29. I put a gentle bend on my hats as soon as I get them. But, I rarely wear ball hats because my head is big and one size does not fit all.

  30. It’s more age than race. The current look is that flat brim (the 59fifty). It’s more popular with hip hop types and younger people.

    I personally think those look awful and prefer a worn 39thirty stretch. The curved brim is more functional for blocking the sun. But I’m not 20 years old.

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